Gutless
by ejarrar
Summary: Naruto is lonely; Renge is sick and tired of being teased for having a girly name. Cost-benefit analyses suggest that a simulation of friendship could be mutually beneficial to both boys.
1. Lights Out

I.

* * *

"Lights out," a caregiver orders. The other boys groan and whine but follow his orders shortly, already tired after a long day of roughhousing and playing ninja. They're asleep within moments.

Renge flips the switch on his lamp obediently a heartbeat later. Something deep inside of him burns and seethes at his easy compliance and the lack of control he has over something as simple as when he should go to bed.

He slides out of his bed as the feeling intensifies and doesn't bother to slip his sandals on before he walks over to the single window in the room. The moonlight slithers in and overlooks them all as the others sleep, and Renge is gratified to hear the snores and grumbles of his roommates for once in his miserable life.

It makes pushing the creaky window open a simpler task, as the sound of it reluctantly opening is masked by their useless breathing and disgusting shifting and scratching.

Renge sticks his head out of the window and peeks left and right and even up, paranoid of any witnesses now that it's the time of year when the Academy Scouts begin their month-long search and recruitment process throughout the Fire Nation's many orphanages, even though hardly any come to the one in Konoha. There's no need.

Regardless, the chunin that are sent are often gigantic sticklers, much like the matron. They enforce the village curfew with a joy no one else ever feels at the thought of yelling at children to get inside before the moon-demons catch them.

Hardly anyone really believes in the moon-demons anymore, but it's frowned upon to threaten children with the fox-demon when it's only been a few years since it sated its hundred-years-hunger with the population of Konoha.

Luckily, there are no chunin in sight, and so Renge hoists himself up onto the windowsill and scoots outside. He overestimates the size of the ledge in the limited light of the hangnail-moon in the sky and immediately falls over into the brambling twigs and depressing weeds the caretakers insist is a garden.

His face flushes in shame and a little bit of pain. The stinging sensation of small cuts on his cheeks and the soles of his feet as well as the ache of bruises forming all along the backs of his thighs distracts him from the anger he'd felt so strongly before.

It's only been a few minutes and already he's regretting his decision to sneak out tonight.

He stands up after a few more seconds dedicated solely to self-pitying and complaining under his breath, then turns back towards the window and tugs it mostly shut. Once that's done he delicately hops out of the death trap he'd fallen into and jogs across the lawn towards the small copse of trees facing this side of the orphanage.

From there, he can sneak out into the small side road that snakes around the Aburame Sector of Konoha, though it's not his favorite route to take. The telltale buzzing of the clan's kikaichu is a bothersome feeling at best and a horrifyingly itchy one beneath his skin at worst, and once he's out on the road he's quick to shuffle around the corner and head towards the abandoned Senju Ward.

The Senju clan had died out not with a bang, but with a whimper. Although the Ward and all its Mokuton-based buildings remain standing after nearly fifty-six years, the place feels ghostly and sad instead of powerful and formidable, like something created from the Shodaime's hands and soul should.

The only remaining Senju in the nation is out traversing the world and spreading her wisdom far and wide, leaving this place to wither and die like the garden that wraps around the walls of the orphanage. Renge finds it beautiful and ethereal, regardless.

There's something achingly familiar in a place left behind by bigger people for greater things.

He slides open the nearest wooden door and slinks into the dusty building like a cat, leaving it open for a moment so his eyes can adjust to the shadows and shapes of the room he's in. As soon as he's sure he can maneuver around with enough ease to reach the door across the room leading to the breezeway that connects this building to the next block, Renge slides the one behind him shut and revels in the silence that greets him kindly. The drunken revelry down the road is now blessedly unnoticeable, and Renge slides his bare feet across the floors as softly as possible.

There's no one around to hear him, but in a village full of shinobi, he feels it's best to blend in as much as possible, even when the only thing you can blend into is nothing but dust and dark and decay.

He reaches the other side of the room with minimal toe-stubbing and glides his hands across the wall until he stumbles across the handle to the backdoor, and then he's out on the breezeway and the world seems so bright even though it's nearly ten in the evening.

Across from him is the first of many small houses in the Senju Ward, and although this breezeway doesn't connect to the patio that ties together all the houses in the block, if he just heads to the right until he reaches the drain pipe on the side of the house, he can climb up onto the low-hanging roof and walk on from there. He'd go through the house itself if its doors and windows weren't all locked, much like the others in this block from this point on.

Renge pushes his sweaty curls off of his forehead once he pulls himself to the top of the drain pipe and over onto the roof, panting shakily. He languishes in the cool night air for a few moments and then stands back up with a sigh, walking over to the back of the house in less than twenty steps. He drops down into a crouch before gripping the ledge of the roof with both hands and allowing his legs to dangle over the side of the building.

He drops to his feet onto the outdoor patio that connects nearly all the houses in the block and looks around anxiously. He always feels like he's being watched when he stands on this patio.

He wonders if the ghosts of the Senju are staring at him and wondering who this little interloper could possibly be. He wonders if they welcome him or shun him in their lonely deaths. Maybe they aren't lonely if they're all together. Maybe they don't mind the company.

A shiver crawls up his spine and he thinks that maybe they do, so he jogs across the patio and heads towards the other side of the block. A small forest lining the Kita River waits for him and guards training grounds hardly ever occupied since they're so close to the village's cemetery.

When he gets to the end of the patio, he tugs himself up onto the railing and is careful not to overestimate the width of it so he doesn't fall sooner than he'd like. He stands down on the dirt road soon after and heads across it towards the trees. The damp dirt feels nice between his toes, but not so nice in the cuts he'd gotten earlier that evening.

He ignores it and tells himself he doesn't care. He'll feel much worse in the spring, when he starts at the Academy. The students actually exercise there. This is nothing.

He's approaching a lonesome tree stump when he hears the loud crack of a twig behind him, and Renge nearly startles out of his skin in fear. He whips around, expecting an Academy Scout or a Genin Corps volunteer caregiver or even a moon-demon, here to yell at him for being out past curfew, but instead he finds Uzumaki Naruto, the boy even his roommates ignore. Renge envies him for that.

"What are you doing here?" he hisses, looking to his left, his right, behind him, up into the trees. He really hopes no one else followed him out here.

The blue-eyed boy stares at him blankly for a minute, fingers twitching nervously, and then he suddenly blinks back into himself with the hoot of an owl and the shaking of the leaves in the trees. His eyes skitter away from Renge's own like a scared puppy and he shuffles his feet in the wet earth beneath them.

Renge notices he's wearing a thin pair of socks and that they're getting dirtier and dirtier the more he drags an anxious line in the almost-mud.

"What are _you_ doing here?" the littler boy eventually works up the nerve to ask, brows furrowed. He's still unwilling to look him in the eyes again.

Renge scowls and crosses his arms. He's cold and annoyed, but mostly cold, so he stomps over to the tree stump he was heading towards before and curls up into a small ball on top of it. "I asked you first," he spits out imperiously, although most of it is muffled into his crossed arms sitting atop his knees.

"So?" Naruto mumbles. His lips curl together into his mouth as he presses his tongue to them, and he takes a hesitant step forward. Renge watches him warily, but says nothing. The blond boy takes a few more steps closer with his head tilted downwards, and then stops suddenly when he's close enough to touch the older boy if he stretched out his arms and fingers as much as he could.

His eyes glance up and meet Renge's for half a second and then instead focus somewhere over his shoulder. "I followed you," he admits, face heating up in embarrassment. He clasps his hands behind his back and frowns.

Renge rolls his eyes. "I _know_ that, dummy," he scolds half-heartedly. He props his chin up on his arms and repeats the words louder when Naruto looks at him in confusion because they were lost in his bony elbows. The blond boy swallows. Renge can hear the dry click of his throat in the night. "Why'd you follow me?"

Naruto rocks back and forth on his heels and Renge watches the dirt seep into the cloth of his socks. "Why'd you leave?" the boy asks.

Renge huffs and shakes his hair out of his face in frustration. He digs his chin into his arms and stares the smaller boy down from his position atop the tree stump and refuses to answer him. Eventually, the blue-eyed boy scowls and asks him why he left the orphanage again, this time more brashly.

"'Cause I wanted to!" Renge says. He sneers at the younger boy. "Stop answering my questions with questions. Your questions are dumb, anyways. Why'd you follow me, huh?" he demands.

Naruto simultaneously bristles and shrinks at the dark haired boy's words. "'Cause I wanted to," he mocks Renge's own answer quietly. "It's cold out," he tells the older boy, wrapping his arms around himself.

"No duh." Renge watches the other boy as he steps a little bit closer to him, curious and wary. "What're you doing?" he asks cautiously. The boy's gotten so close Renge can feel his breath on his calves.

"Can I sit with you?" Naruto asks in response. His blue eyes look black in the shadow of his eyelashes as they focus on Renge's toes.

Renge groans. "No!" he says, scooting over. A scant few inches are revealed on the stump before he reaches the left-hand edge. "See? There's not even any room. No."

Naruto's eyes move from Renge's toes to the space the older boy revealed on the stump. "I can fit there, y'know," he insists stubbornly. "Can I sit?"

The curly haired boy sighs and shoves his head into his arms. "Fine," he relents.

The younger boy immediately clambers up onto the tree stump and nearly tilts the both of them over the sides in his haste. Renge grabs onto Naruto's puny arm and hauls himself closer to the blond as Naruto grapples with the right-hand edge of the stump. They tilt together and meet in the middle, holding on tightly until the risk of falling is gone. "Told you there's no room!"

"Sorry," Naruto mumbles. "I'm still cold. Aren't you?"

Renge looks at the blond out of the corner of his eye. "Not really," he lies.

"Oh." Naruto shivers and curls one of his legs up under himself. The other dangles over the side of the tree stump. His shorts are thin and threadbare and ride up under his skinny thighs. Gooseflesh pimples his legs all over.

Although Renge's wearing pajama pants and a long-sleeved t-shirt, they're both just as thin as Naruto's socks and shorts and short-sleeved t-shirt. The older boy shivers, too. Naruto whips his head up and stares wide-eyed at him. "You _are_ cold!" he accuses, aghast.

"Am not," Renge denies immediately.

"Are too!" Naruto argues. He looks like he wants to yell some more, but then he glances over Renge's shoulder instead and purses his lips, thinking hard. Renge wants to tell him to stop it before he hurts himself, but before he can, Naruto mumbles, "D'ya wanna… Can I…"

Renge frowns when Naruto doesn't continue. He doesn't care, not really, but it's annoying how the blond won't just spit it out. "What?"

"Hug?" Naruto eventually whispers. Renge isn't sure he's heard him right and tilts his head askance. Naruto lets out a shaky sigh and glances at him then back towards the damp dirt beneath their tree stump and repeats the word hesitantly.

"What d'ya mean?"

"I mean, can we hug? Y'know, to stay warm?" Naruto forces out. All his bravery comes and goes in short bursts - after he's asked Renge the question that's been stuck on his mind the last few minutes he falls deathly silent once more.

Renge sniffles as cold wet snot threatens to drip out of his nose, whipped frozen by the occasional breeze. "Only girls hug to keep warm." That's what the other boys in his room would've said, anyway.

"Really?" Naruto mumbles. His shoulders slump and he purses his lips.

"I dunno," Renge admits. The other boys made fun of him for having a girl's name a lot of the time, but Renge didn't think his name was that girly. So what if it was? Renge wasn't a girl. He doesn't cry when he falls out of windows and scrapes his feet up, and he likes to play outside sometimes, and he doesn't care if he gets kind of dirty. "Maybe boys can hug, too," he says, thinking of when the other boys got super close to each other as they played ninja.

That was like hugging, wasn't it?

Naruto is silent but he watches Renge hopefully. The dark haired boy watches the tree leaves rustle instead of watching the blond boy back, and neither of them say anything until an owl hoots again.

"Yeah, I guess," Renge says, tilting his face down into his left arm and letting his right dangle down by his side. Naruto sucks in a quick breath, and his fingers twitch towards Renge's hand for a few seconds before they finally latch on. He's holding onto him so hard the older boy can hear his fingers creaking in protest. "That hurts."

"Sorry," Naruto whispers, letting go of his hand. Eventually, he latches back on, this time to Renge's arm, and he shuffles so close his messy hair brushes against Renge's ear and shoulder.

Renge lets himself be tugged this way and that, and Naruto ends up curled up under his arm with his head pillowed on his collarbone. The blond wraps his arms around Renge's middle and knocks the older boy's left arm down off of his legs, causing Renge to hiss as his head jostles forward and knocks into his knee.

"Sorry," Naruto repeats again, though he doesn't sound very sorry.

Renge simply wraps his arm back around his legs and tugs them closer to his stomach. Naruto's arm gets squished into him as he does so, but he doesn't say anything about it.

Slowly, the gooseflesh on their bodies settles down into the warmth of their embrace.


	2. Like Friends

II.

* * *

Renge curls over the book in his lap and shoos away the sunlight with a hand at the top of the page. He's squinting down at the words and mumbling them to himself when he hears the rustle of grass being disturbed nearby, and although he doesn't look up to see who's there, he groans aloud. "Go away," he tells them.

"Why?" Naruto asks defiantly, settling down beneath the tree Renge has claimed for the day. "Aren't you bored?"

Renge rolls his eyes and flips the page pointedly. "Nope."

Naruto twirls his fingers over his knees before letting his legs sprawl out in front of him. His hands tug his shorts down absently. "Don't you wanna play with the others?"

"Not really," Renge grumbles. He shrugs his too-big jacket back over his shoulders when it threatens to fall past his twig-thin arms. "We don't like playing together," he admits.

Naruto's face scrunches, faded white scars on his cheeks crinkling in the sun. "They always wanna play with you," the blond argues. He bites his lip and glances across the lawn at the other kids giggling and tackling each other; playing ninja. "Not me."

At last, Renge lifts his head from his book and shoves his loose curls out of his face. "They don't wanna play with me, dummy," he tells Naruto, scowling. "They don't like me." He shifts his moody glare towards the orphanage and slams his book shut, folding over it protectively. "I don't care. They're stupid."

Naruto's blue eyes are wide with disbelief when they skitter over towards Renge again. "But they played ninja with you before!"

Renge scowls and stares at Naruto like he's sprouted three heads. "You're an idiot," he tells the younger boy decisively. Naruto sputters and opens his mouth to yell, but Renge doesn't feel like listening to him screech like a baby today. "They just wanted to hit me and take my stuff."

The younger boy lets his gaze flitter from Renge to the other kids across the lawn for a few seconds, and then asks, "Like bandits?"

"I guess," the dark haired boy allows.

Naruto pulls his t-shirt up over his chin, biting at the collar of it nervously. "Bandits aren't nice, y'know," he mumbles into it.

"No duh."

"Why aren't they nice to you?" the blond wonders, tugging his shirt back out of his mouth when Renge glares at it in disgust.

Renge sighs, annoyed. "Why are you so nosy?" he retorts, dropping his book back onto the grass in the middle of his half-crossed legs and flipping it open to the page he'd last read. Naruto squawks in protest, hands reaching out and fluttering indecisively around Renge's shoulders and legs and the book between them, but not touching. "My name is Renge."

Naruto stops moving, tongue caught between his teeth. He stares for so long Renge wonders if he's fallen asleep with his eyes open. The matron sometimes did that. "I know," he whispers. "I'm Naruto."

Renge scoffs, bending his head down and dragging his fingers across the page. "I _know_ , idiot," he says, then mumbles a few words off the page to himself. "They think my name is girly, and they don't like it. Me."

Naruto flushes and digs his hands into the grass between his legs, tugging at it as the edges of his shorts flop slightly in the wind. "Is it?"

The curly haired boy glares at him, affronted. "No!" Then, he deflates. "Maybe. I dunno. I don't like bugs."

Naruto glances at the older boy and bites his lip. "I don't either," he tells Renge. It seems like it's only half of a lie, and so Renge doesn't do much more than spare him a wry look. "Who cares, anyway? Bugs are ugly, y'know!" the younger boy declares so loudly a few birds twitter angrily out of the trees behind them.

"Yeah, I know," Renge groans. He thinks if he keeps hanging out with Naruto, he'll be saying that a lot. He glances across the lawn to where the other kids are roughhousing, paying them no mind, and wonders if it's really worth it. Trading one big dummy for eighty small ones seems to even itself out more than it tips the balance in his favor. "It doesn't matter. I'm not a girl."

Naruto grins. "Yeah, I know," he snickers. Renge's face and ears burn red, and he shoves his face back down into his book. "They're really not your friends?" he asks after a few quiet minutes have passed. He's hesitant, again, and the dark haired boy thinks of how Naruto's bravery really does seem to come and go in short bursts. Annoying.

"Nope," he responds, distracted. He flips a page in the book and continues mumbling the words to himself softly.

"I'm not friends with them either," Naruto tells him, as though that's news.

Renge looks at him from the corner of his eye, shoving some of his curls back behind his ear. "You're not friends with anyone," he says. It's not cruel if it's true.

Naruto, who usually begins yelling and stomping away when someone says something honest, falls deathly silent. His fingers don't even tug any more of the grass out of the lawn. Renge almost asks him what's wrong, but then he realizes he doesn't actually care, so he turns back to his book and waits for the younger boy to either say something or run off.

"Aren't we friends?" Naruto eventually whispers. Renge stops reading his book immediately, mouth halfway through sounding out the next word on the page, and while he doesn't look at Naruto, it's obvious he's paying attention to him. The blond stares at the side of the older boy's head boldly, even though his face is so pale he looks nearly dead.

Renge lifts a hand to his lips and tugs at them anxiously. "Are we?" he asks. He'd meant to say no.

"We hugged," Naruto answers, as though that means anything. Renge still won't look at him.

"Like girls," the older boy grumbles. His ears are tipped with red.

"Like friends," Naruto corrects, all-knowing. He's only five. What does he know about friends? It's not like he's ever had any.

Renge purses his lips and doesn't say any of that, though. "You're dumb," is what he settles on.

"Am not!" Naruto screeches, tackling him into the grass. Renge's book gets squashed beneath their bodies and the older boy gasps in horror.

"Are too! Get off! You're gonna squish my book!" He jabs a hand into Naruto's stomach and rolls them over until they hit a tree. Naruto giggles stupidly and pulls at Renge's hair as Renge jerks his head to make sure his book isn't ruined, sitting on Naruto's stomach to keep him down. His book looks okay from there, so he turns back to the blond and rips his hand out of his hair before using it to smack at the scars on Naruto's cheeks.

"Stop hitting yourself," he tells the boy.

Naruto twists his hand around until he's gripping Renge's fingers hard enough to break them and holds their hands far away from his face, stubbornly ignoring the twitch of them as Renge tries to pull them back to hit Naruto again.

He's grinning, though, and he looks so happy Renge thinks he might cry. He's probably an ugly crier. He's not very cute in the first place.

They wrestle until the caregivers say it's lunchtime. Renge cradles his book close to his chest, doesn't bother to brush the grass and dirt off of his overalls, and ignores the new rips and tears in his hand-me-down jacket. He checks and double-checks that his book has received nary a crinkle in its pages and eyes Naruto warily as the younger boy tries and fails to whistle while skipping back into the orphanage.

He spots and pulls a twig out of the blond boy's hair to use as a bookmark. Naruto looks over his shoulder at him and laughs.

No one bothers them as they eat. Renge smiles into his peas.


	3. Old Hag

III.

* * *

The Genin Corps volunteers keep an uncomfortably sharp eye on everyone when they show up during their biweekly busywork missions. Renge fiddles with the worn-through patch in the knee of his overalls and frowns, wishing he was able to sneak away to the library now more than ever.

The boys have mostly left him alone for the last week and a half, and the girls never bothered him much in the first place because they think he's gross, but the caregivers and the matron have all been watching him from afar. The volunteers watch everyone from afar, because they all hate being here and despise the idea of getting anywhere near enough to the kids to be touched by them, but he feels like they're watching him harder than anyone else.

He thinks that he might've made a slight miscalculation in letting Uzumaki Naruto befriend him. Maybe.

The caregivers don't really bother him anymore, but they're far stricter with Renge than he'd anticipated. They don't yell at or scold him - they've never had reason to in the past and he's given them none presently - but they don't let him linger as long at night when he has to turn his lamp off for curfew, nor do they let him take his time coming inside for meals after playtime. Sneaking out at night is marginally harder because they pace the halls outside his rooms, whether he's in his own or Naruto's.

He feels caged in now more than ever.

He'd decided to become friends with Naruto in the hopes he'd be given some form of peace, quiet, and freedom. Instead he just feels greasy and hot, like someone stuck him in a freshly buttered frying pan because they wanted to watch him crackle and burn like pork.

There's no freedom when you're pork. Just the sinking sensation of being cooked so you could be chewed up and consumed by someone else.

"You," a volunteer suddenly snaps. Renge jolts out of his daze.

"Yeah?" He's surprised, though he endeavors not to show it. He'd gotten far too used to not being approached by adults.

The older girl's feet are delicate and arched in her navy blue sandals, toes painted an unchipped bright yellow, and calluses litter the sides of them. They're uncomfortably close to Renge's knees, so he slides back clumsily on the floor. He wonders if she'll make any effort to kick him if he's farther away.

"Quit it," she demands.

"What?" he asks, peeking up at her through his curls. She's scowling, white-blonde brows tilted angrily over blank, gray eyes. "What'd I do?" he grumbles, folding his arms around his stomach and pulling his criss-crossed legs closer to his center.

"You're ruining perfectly good clothes," she tells him. Her voice sounds haughty and proud and her face screams of derision, but Renge doesn't recognize anything in her eyes that's familiar in his own when he feels superior to the stupider kids in the orphanage. She's dull. It's creepy. He doesn't like her, which doesn't make her unlike anyone else he's ever met before.

"They're my clothes to ruin," he says, sniffing imperiously. "Why do you care?"

Her toes twitch, one by one. It's creepier than her eyes. She doesn't kick out at him. "You don't own those clothes. You're not allowed to ruin them."

Renge frowns, shoving a hand through his hair and glaring up at the volunteer with a huff. "The matron gave me them. They're mine. I can ruin 'em if I wanna."

The girl huffs back at him in the same annoyed cadence he'd huffed at her. He glares up at her. Her lips are twisted into some kind of grimace. She looks like she's amused. "The matron lent them to you, therefore they aren't yours. You're meant to follow orders. Quit it."

Renge rolls his eyes and grumbles to himself. He stretches his legs out in front of him, too short to reach the older girl's feet, and the hole in the knee of his pants too far for him to pick at with his hands. "Happy?" he spits out sarcastically.

"Very," the volunteer answers. She doesn't look happy. She doesn't look upset either. She just looks creepy. Her arms are loose by her sides and she stares at him with her weird gray eyes. "You're friends with the Uzumaki boy."

Renge scrunches his face up in consternation, tilting his head to look around the room. No one is paying them any mind aside from his roommates, who point and laugh at him for being scolded by the older girl. Naruto isn't here. Neither is the matron. He imagines he's gotten himself into trouble much like Renge has. Not like Renge does it on purpose. Or ever. "Yeah. So what?"

"You don't like him," the volunteer accuses carelessly.

"Who says?" Renge splutters, ears and cheeks tomato red. The burn of them is distracting and he can't look the girl in the eyes anymore. "We play together!"

"I say." The older girl shifts on her feet, and like the twitch of her toes and the twist of her lips, the movement seems deliberate and thought out long before it's put into action. It doesn't sit right on her frame. She doesn't actually look uncomfortable enough to need to adjust the weight of her hips from side to side. "Playing together, reading together, sneaking out together. You do it all, but you don't like him. Why act like you do?"

Renge feels almost offended at her blunt accusations, even though she's mostly right. Naruto's pretty dumb. And loud. And annoying. All things he hates with a fiery passion. "I don't have to like him," he tells the older girl, pouting and crossing his arms across his chest. "He's better company than everyone else."

"Is he?" she wonders. "How so?"

Renge squints at the floor, then shrugs. "I dunno. Just is."

"Don't lie to me," she says. "I can tell when you're lying."

"I'm not," he lies. "And no you can't," he denies, glaring up at her suspiciously.

"You're lying, still," she sighs. Renge turns away from her, harrumphing. She mocks the sound back at him. "What do you want from Uzumaki Naruto?"

"I don't want anything from him!" Renge shouts, slapping a hand onto his thigh. "I just wanna be left alone! Leave me alone, lady! You're rude and annoying and I don't like you!"

She watches him silently for a few moments longer, then tilts her head like the animals do in the woods. She smiles, a weird little thing, and Renge shivers in disgust. She's so freaky. "No, you're rude," she tells him matter-of-factly. "Have some respect for your elders," she chides.

"Just go away!" he snarls, kicking out at her. His feet come nowhere close to her own, and she doesn't even flinch away from him. "I'm done talking to you, old hag!"

"Quit it," the gray eyed girl demands once more. "Thank you for the conversation, Renge-kun."

He sticks his tongue out at her back as she retreats back to her fellow volunteers who are playing a game of Go Fish, then gets up to run out of the room. "Gotta pee!" he shouts over his shoulder as the other volunteers half-heartedly demand to know where he's going.

He does go to the bathroom, but it's the girl's one. They have a window in theirs, which is just as weird as the volunteer lady had been, but it makes it easy to sneak out when they have playtime inside.

He wants to go to the library, still, but he knows if he does he'll get caught. He plucks the weeds out of the garden instead and imagines what it would be like if real flowers grew there, like how they do outside the Yamanaka Quarters all through the summer.

When he's crushed enough of them in his palms and then rubbed them into the dirt with the heel of his foot to feel better, he climbs back into the girl's bathroom.

He tip-toes out in a quiet panic when he hears one of the girls humming in a stall as she pees, only to come to a sudden stop as soon as he's out the door. A brown haired girl blinks at him, mouth agape, and then she scowls. "Hey!" Her shout becomes a squeal as Renge shoves past her and dashes madly back to the playroom. "Get back here! I'm gonna tell the matron on you, weirdo!"

Renge frowns as he whips around another corner, this time away from the playroom, in order to avoid the girl chasing after him. "I'm not a weirdo!" he yells back at her. He regrets it as soon as he hears the other girl gasp and change directions, knowing he just gave himself away right after he'd lost her.

Yeah, he's not a weirdo, not like the old hag, but he's acting pretty stupid. Internally, he blames Naruto.

"You were in the girl's bathroom! Weirdo!" She chants the word a few more times as she skids around the halls behind him, and Renge glares at her over his shoulder.

"Then you're a weirdo too, weirdo! And all the other dumb girls like you!" He jerks around to run backwards and pull his bottom eyelids down with his tongue sticking out, jeering at her blindly. She roars something unintelligible at him before suddenly he's tackled to the floor. "Agh! Get off of me!"

She punches him in the stomach and rips some of his hair out before he's able to roll them over and lick a long stripe up the skin of her forearm. The girl screams and calls him gross, tucking her arms close to her chest, and Renge takes the opportunity to pin them off to the sides since she isn't punching him anymore.

He grins and leans over her face, swishing some spit around in his mouth. She pales dramatically.

"Don't," she begs him.

He cackles and lets his mouth drop open. A glob of saliva drips past his lips slowly, and the brown haired girl flushes an infuriated and horrified tomato red color. "I'm gonna _kill_ you!" she yells.

Renge's spit detaches from his lips and falls onto her face with a disgusting _plop!_

"You're gonna _die!_ Die, die, die!" she screams, jerking about in his hold.

Renge's almost impressed. She's not crying like all the other girls usually do when he does stuff like this. He might actually kind of like her on any other day that wasn't today.

He crawls forward and presses his bony knees into her arms to hold them in place while he takes his hands off to rub the spit in her face some more. "You can try," he goads her, snickering. "But I think I'm the winner, and you're the loser, _loser_."

She scowls up at him, brown bangs wet with spit and dark eyes on fire, and Renge has half a moment to laugh in her face again before she knees him in the back of the head and turns the tables on him.

The Genin Corps volunteers find them long after they've finished pummeling each other half to death and called a truce, but they punish them anyway. He should've gone off to the library when he had the chance.


	4. Rotten Boy

IV.

* * *

"Here." The matron hands him a pile of papers unceremoniously, hazel eyes piercing in their scrutiny of his bruised and bedraggled form. Renge takes them from her with no small amount of hesitation and a yawn, kicking the sheets off of his body and stumbling to his feet. "Your identification papers for the Entrance Ceremony," she explains.

"Oh," Renge says.

Laughter filters in from the open window like a faraway dream. Renge looks around the room and figures the other boys woke up much earlier than him and are playing outside. He wonders why Naruto hadn't taken the time out of his day to annoy him yet. He's grateful he hadn't, but it's something to question nevertheless.

Renge shakes himself from his sleepy contemplation and glances down at his identification papers. Immediately, he's filled with a familiar, achy feeling of indignity and helplessness. "I said I didn't want a name!" he accuses the matron angrily.

"And so you received no name," she tells him, exasperated.

"This isn't no name!" he shouts, crinkling the papers in his hands as he shakes them at the matron. "This isn't _my_ name!"

"'Nonashi Renge.'" The wrinkles around her eyes grow more pronounced as Renge refuses to calm down. "Your name is Renge. You wanted no name offered to you for your identification papers, so you received no name."

Renge splutters and tries to ignore the flush that rises from his chest to his cheeks. He's never felt more like a child than in this moment, he decides. He hates it. "You gave me a name! How does this mean I got no name?"

" _Nonashi_ means no name," the matron informs him. "You needed a name for the Academy, and you didn't want one, so I gave you no name."

Renge growls and throws the papers to the floor. "Just because it means no name doesn't mean you gave me no name. I don't want it. Fix it," he demands.

The matron's carefully constructed façade of calm splinters at his tone. She glares at him. "You've been acting strangely the past few weeks, Renge-kun, and I don't particularly appreciate your newfound attitude."

Renge rolls his eyes and says, "Well, I don't like getting a name I didn't want."

"Rotten boy," the matron snarls, leaning down and gripping his cheeks between her long-nailed fingers. They feel like a vulture's claws.

Renge freezes, unused to such treatment from the matron.

"Acting so spoilt and demanding, so out-of-character. You're usually such an easy charge, Renge-kun. Why are you being so difficult now?" The matron tries her best to seem as collected as ever, but so close to Renge's face, the ire flashing in her eyes is unmistakable. He tries not to shake and tremble like a leaf in the wind, but it's hard.

Renge's never been afraid of the matron before. The feeling is just as scary as the scariness itself.

"I've always been this way," he tries to tell her. The words are hard to get out with her hand clenched around his mouth. He can feel the scratches digging themselves into the flesh of his face from the matron's nails, making themselves at home next to the mottled blues-and-purples-and-yellows the girl from last week had left behind in her fiery wake. The words are harder to repeat because there's a part of him that doesn't want the matron to know the truth of him yet.

"You've never been this way," the matron corrects him. Renge scowls as best as he can. The matron has known nothing of him in all the years she's taken care of him and the others, and yet she acts likes she knows him better than he knows himself?

"I _have_ ," he growls at her, insistent. He tries to rip her hand off of his face with his own two, tiny palms, but she doesn't budge an inch. "You just didn't know!"

"No, Renge-kun," the matron chides, gentling her grip on his face as she sighs deeply. "I know you. You're a good boy," she tells him. She looks so stupidly sad that all Renge wants to do is fling a glob of spit into her face like he does to all the girls when the caregivers aren't watching. Her fingers slip off of his face at last. "You've just been turned into something you're not without your knowledge or consent."

Renge squints up at her, brows furrowed. He rubs his hands across his cheeks, pulls them away and spares a glance for the specks of blood hidden in the crevices of his palms. "What do you mean?" he asks, curious despite himself.

"I can't blame you for falling for a demon's charms." The matron settles onto the bed Renge had vacated earlier, black robes pooling around her feet like a shadow. He's hesitant to follow suit, but she pats the space next to her and smiles wanly. He crawls up onto the bed and shifts away from her, paranoid of her nails and her iron grip in a way he'd never had to be before. "If I were so young as you, I may have done the same. Age offers a wisdom and power against such things we cannot fight as children."

Renge glances outside the window and spots the moon in the sky, nearly hidden behind all the trees and the bright light of the sun. "The moon-demons?" he wonders, picking nervously at the dry skin of his lips. "I haven't seen any moon-demons, ma'am. If I don't talk to them, how do they charm me?"

"Not the moon-demons, Renge-kun," the matron corrects him wearily. "Something much worse, and with greater power than those old moon-demons."

Renge glances at her askance, but she doesn't continue. He pouts and kicks his legs back and forth over the edge of the bed. "Like the fox-demon?"

She turns her head and looks down at him, eyes wide. She stares at him until Renge grows restless under the weight of it, and eventually she relaxes. Her jaw clenches and releases, once then twice, and she swallows roughly. She considers saying something but falls silent, hardly breathing.

Renge wishes she'd just say whatever it is she wants to say.

"Something with the power of the fox-demon, yes, I suppose," the matron allows, tasting the words on her tongue as she lets them slip past slowly. "But not the fox-demon, either." She sounds like she's lying.

They've been quiet for a long few minutes, words falling prey to thought over action. As much as Renge wants to stay mad at her, he can't help but worry about what she's insinuated. "How do you know if you've been charmed by a demon?" he hesitantly queries.

The matron rests a conciliatory hand on his knee. It burns his skin through the thin fabric of his pajama pants, and he shifts uncomfortably. She doesn't remove it. "It's easiest to tell when it's someone you love who's been taken in by one," she informs him. "They begin to act differently. They're quicker to anger, more willing to hurt others. You've been very rude the past few weeks, Renge-kun. And you hurt Tenten-kun last week."

Renge frowns, peeling off the skin of his lips with his teeth and swallowing it. "She started it," he grumbles half-heartedly. The matron's hand slides up past his knee and pinches his thigh in warning. "Sorry," he squeaks out, then coughs, embarrassed at the sound he'd made. "I shouldn't have hurt Tenten-kun the other day. It was mean and cruel," he recites, just like he had in the matron's office a few days ago.

The matron smiles, quick and easy. "Good boy," she coos. Then her face falls flat once more. "Renge-kun, don't you see? I never had to punish you before to get you to see the right of ways. You've been disobedient and cruel. So rotten, my boy, and you don't even understand what's happening to you."

"That I've been charmed by a demon?" His voice is hardly more than a rough whisper, nearly lost in the soft breeze floating in from the cracked window on the far side of the room. His shame is buried far inside of him for once, replaced instead with a leaden worry heavy in the pit of his stomach.

"Yes," the matron answers simply, uncaring of the way it makes Renge stiffen under her hand.

Renge swallows and tightens his lips involuntarily. "How do I make it go away? If it's really…"

The matron rubs a soothing circle around his thigh, then pats his knee decisively. "You must make lots of nice friends at the Academy, Renge-kun. None like Uzumaki-kun," she tells him conspiratorially. A grin pulls at the corner of her lips, revealing a sharp canine that shines in the sun. "He's probably taken in much like you, but he's too far gone to be able to ward the demons off like you can. They find no strength in their pull when they try to charm good boys with kind, loving friends, you know."

Renge's lips part slightly. He finds it hard to breathe, though he's not sure why. He can't bring himself to look the matron in the eye. He settles somewhere on the bridge of her narrow nose instead. "Okay," he agrees weakly.

The matron smiles and presses a kiss to his sweaty curls, damp against his forehead, and squeezes her hand softly around his twig-thin arm. "Such a good boy, Renge-kun," she murmurs.

When she's finally left, Renge kneels shakily on the floor and picks up the papers he'd thrown down much earlier.

He thinks about what the matron said about demons and their charms, about making friends, about Naruto. He's always been this way, he knows, even if the matron doesn't. Angry and mean and cruel. Is it really Renge that needs to worry about being taken in by demons and others who've been possessed? Or is it Renge who's been possessed this whole time?

He thinks about Naruto and his sunny grin, the happiness on his face when Renge is near, the youthful ignorance in the year that separates them, and he worries that he's the demon taking the boy in with his charms.

He tries to shake the idea out of his skull but only succeeds in making it rattle loudly against the walls surrounding his brain; it echoes menacingly from the bone, whispers to him over and over again until he feels like he's going to be sick.

He tucks his identification papers away inside the hole he'd cut into the side of his mattress the year before, hidden by the water stained wall.

Then he runs off to the bathroom, knowing he's going to be sick.

The reek of his throw up isn't enough to ground him, and neither is the burning ache behind his eyes. He doesn't let himself cry, because that's what girls do when they're scared and he'll never get anything done if he just sits there on the dirty bathroom floor and wails. He stands up when he can make his legs stop shaking, flushes the toilet three times til the stink of his sick is gone, and washes his hands until his skin is rubbed raw and red.

Then he changes out of his pajamas and sneaks out of the orphanage despite the fact he's bound to get caught.

He can't bring himself to care about being punished again. He just needs to go to the library.


	5. Eating Dust

V.

* * *

The afternoon sun lights upon the dust motes floating by the large window between the two bookcases Renge had laid claim to as soon as he'd reached the library. Three large stacks of useless books block the aisle off from the rest of the library's inhabitants, all of whom Renge would vomit all over if they tried to intrude upon his safe space.

On the carpeted floor, sandwiched by shelves of scrolls and books and other knick-knacks people had left behind over the years, Renge uses one foot and an elbow to hold open a ridiculously long scroll about the tailed-demons. He tries valiantly to ignore the dust flying up his nose and down his throat, but he ends up sneezing on the childish drawing of the original Sennin and his ugly horned face regardless.

Renge groans and throws himself onto his back. The scroll rapidly rolls shut with a wicked _slam!_ He'll kick it over towards the barricade once he's stopped sniffling, he's decided. And then he'll puke on it, because he hates it and all the other books and scrolls that came before it, because none of them have told him what he wants to know, because they're all useless and smelly and they suck.

"Pssst!" someone hisses from the other side of the barricade.

Renge groans again, throwing his arms over his face and rubbing his nose into them frustratedly. "Go away!"

"What're you doing?" Naruto asks. He doesn't go away. In fact, he tries to climb over the barricade, but he just knocks over the multiple towers of books instead. "Oops, sorry," he tells them. He kneels next to Renge's prostrate form and looks like he's thinking really hard. Eventually, he uncurls a finger and attempts to poke the dark haired boy on the ground.

Renge slaps his hand away immediately, glaring at the shadow-darkened ceiling of the library, ten thousand lightyears away.

Naruto harrumphs, and asks again: "What're you doing?"

"Eating dust," Renge informs him snottily. Boogers slide out of his nose. He sniffs extra hard to try and get them to go back up his nose.

"Gross," Naruto says, reaching his hand out again. Renge goes to slap it away, but the younger boy just slaps Renge's hand away and pulls his shirt up off of his tummy to wipe at Renge's nose.

"Gross," Renge says, looking at his wet snot on Naruto's beige shirt. It's damp and dark brown where his boogers are. It kind of looks like poop.

"Are you hungry?" the blond queries, peering at Renge's face curiously. "You shouldn't eat dust, it's not actually food."

Renge rolls his eyes. "I'm not really eating dust, dummy."

"Eh?" Naruto stupidly says. "But you said you were. Isn't that why you're here with all these stinky books?"

"I was _reading_ them," he tells the younger boy as slowly as he can, because Naruto is slow and only understands people when they also act slow.

"Reading them?" Naruto yelps, skittering backwards until his back hits the bookshelf behind him. He yelps again. "Ouch! All of 'em?"

"Duh," Renge sighs. He feels so tired.

"Why?" Naruto asks, tilting his head to try and read the titles of the books sprawled across the floor between them. "These look scary."

"They're not," Renge mutters, "they're just stupid. Like you."

"Hey!" the blond shouts. Renge shushes him immediately in the hopes that the librarian won't come over to kick them both out. She could kick Naruto out if she wanted, just not him, too. "Hey!" Naruto whisper-shouts this time. Renge punches Naruto's foot. "Why'd you read them if they're stupid?"

Renge wonders why he hangs out with Naruto since he's so stupid. "Because I want to know more about the demons, idiot."

"Why?"

Doesn't he ever get tired of asking Renge why? "Ugh," the curly haired boy grunts. "Go away."

"Why!"

Renge sure is tired of being asked why. "Because I said so!"

"But I don't wanna!" Naruto whines. "I'm hungry. Let's go get lunch!"

"I don't wanna!" Renge repeats in the same whiny, annoying voice Naruto used. "Go by yourself!"

"No!" Naruto pouts, crossing his arms over his chest. Then he uncrosses them and crawls forward on his hands and knees until he's leaning over Renge's face, choppy blond hair tickling the older boy's face. Renge blinks rapidly and shakes his head back and forth, trying to get his hair out of his nose and eyes and mouth. "Are we still friends?" he asks, quiet and nervous.

Renge's face is turned to the side, right cheek pressed into the carpet so hard he can feel it burning his skin, and he keeps his eyes closed even though a strand of Naruto's hair is stuck between his lashes and poking his left eyeball.

"Are we?" Naruto insists, voice wobbly and sad.

He's probably going to start crying on Renge or something, no matter what he says. Renge shrugs his shoulders up beside his ears and curls his legs up to push his knees into the smaller boy's chest, shoving him up and away. Naruto falls against the bookshelf with a watery "Oof!" and Renge sits up with a frown.

"Why do you wanna be my friend so bad?" he asks the blond. Great, now he sounds like him, too. Why, why, why.

Naruto sniffles, super wet boogers sliding out of his nose and into his mouth. He'd started crying sometime between Renge thinking he would and Renge shoving him off of his body before he could start dripping onto his face. Gross. The blond opens his mouth, but before he can say anything, someone coughs at the end of the aisle.

Renge turns and sees the librarian, wrinkly and ready to kick him and Naruto out. Renge growls and whips his head around to glare at Naruto before climbing to his feet and stomping out of his little cave.

He ignores the librarian shouting at his back, telling him to clean up his mess or else she'll never let him back in, because this isn't the first time she's said so and next time she won't even remember his face. He ignores Naruto running after him until they get outside, sun bright and warm on their heads. Then he turns and frowns at the shorter boy, tears smeared across his scarred cheeks and snot sneaking past the spots where he's missing baby teeth.

Renge thinks about using his shirt to wipe the boy's face clean, but he realizes that's dumb and nasty, so he balls up the end of Naruto's own booger-encrusted shirt and pulls it up over his chest to do it instead. Naruto sputters and sobs into Renge's t-shirt-covered hand, so the dark haired boy holds it over his face until he either stops crying or suffocates himself.

Naruto finally settles on the former, and Renge unwraps his hand from the blond's shirt and lets it flutter back down over his chest.

"Gross," they say. Naruto rubs his fists into his eyes as he giggles shakily, and Renge rolls his eyes, lips pursed in reluctant amusement.

"I'm hungry," Renge admits. "But I don't wanna go back. We're gonna get in trouble anyway."

"Okay," Naruto agrees easily. It makes Renge's stomach twist, and he almost says he's not hungry anymore, but Naruto reaches out a hand to pull at Renge's arm and drag him toward the Yamanaka Quarters, their brightly blooming flowers, and the street corner they'll eventually turn down to reach the shops on the main road. "We can find somewhere else to eat."

"Okay," Renge agrees. It's not as easy for him.


	6. Basketcase

VI.

* * *

Renge's pockets are empty. He shoves his hands into Naruto's just to discover that his pockets are empty, too. He pulls them out and leaves Naruto's pockets hanging inside-out while he flicks off the cotton fuzz that's stuck to his fingers. "We need money, stupid."

"Maybe if we ask all nice and stuff, someone will give us some," Naruto suggests. Renge gives him a dirty look. "What?"

"You really are stupid, stupid," Renge tells him. "No one's gonna give us money for free."

"Not even if we're really nice?"

Renge kicks at a pebble in the road and watches it skitter towards an old lady's basket of fruits. He wants it to hit the apple in the center. It stops halfway there, far away from the basket and the apple in its middle. He sighs. "Not even if we're really nice," Renge confirms.

When they reach the pebble in the road again, he kicks it harder than he had the first time; it slams into the apple and slides down into the basket. Renge throws his arms into the air and cheers, jumping around excitedly. The old lady turns and frowns at him and Naruto, but doesn't look down at her fruits to see the bruised apple in their midst.

"Maybe we can wash dishes for noodles!" Naruto exclaims suddenly, grabbing Renge by the shoulders and whipping him toward the ramen stand across the street. "The caregivers always gimme some leftovers if I help them wash dishes, y'know!"

Renge squints over his shoulder at Naruto. "Doesn't that mean we'll only get leftovers then? I don't wanna hafta eat seaweed for lunch." He pouts and jerks his arms out of Naruto's hands as he pointedly adds, "Or fishcakes."

Naruto scowls and shoves his shoulder into Renge's, sending the taller boy stumbling off to the side. "There's nothin' wrong with fishcakes," he grumbles.

Renge rights himself, tugging his shorts back up his waist, and glares at the dried boogers all over Naruto's t-shirt. "They're nasty. You're nasty."

"You're mean," Naruto says. Renge widens his eyes and tries to give the younger boy his best "No duh!" look. "Anyway, seaweed and fishcakes is better than the beans the matron makes."

Renge thinks about the matron's beans and their weird, sticky juices. He shudders. "Yeah. Whatever. Let's try to wash dishes for seaweed and fishcakes."

Inside the noodle shop, Naruto shouts: "Hey, mister! Can we wash your dishes?" A few people turn to glare at them, but Naruto doesn't notice, and Renge sticks his tongue out at them until they turn back around.

A tall brunette appears from behind the bar, eyebrows furrowed. "Why do y'wanna wash our dishes?" she asks, voice squeaky like a chew toy. Renge crosses his arms over his chest and huffs. Girls are so annoying. Even their voices are annoying.

"'Cuz we want fishcakes!" Naruto answers, jumping from foot to foot eagerly.

"No we don't," Renge immediately disagrees. "We want noodles."

"Or fishcakes! And seaweed," Naruto adds. "When we wash dishes at the orphanage, we get leftovers!"

The girl taps a finger to her chin and stares up at the banner of crimson flags hanging above the entryway to the shop. "I think you need to pay for it if you want noodles here. Or seaweed. Or fishcakes," she says.

"We don't got any money, miss," Naruto says sadly, scuffing his foot against the ground. "Are you sure we can't wash your dishes?"

Renge pulls at the side of Naruto's t-shirt and hisses, "She said no! Let's go."

"No she didn't!" Naruto protests, pushing Renge's hand away. "She just said she thinks we can't. But you have to ask the mister, right? Right?" he insists, jumping forward into the older girl's space. She blinks and steps away from Naruto, probably because he's kinda ugly up close.

"I guess I can ask my dad," she slowly responds. They all stand there staring at each other in silence for a few seconds. Then she turns and screams: "DAD!"

"Please don't scream in the shop like that unless you're getting murdered, Aya-chan," a wrinkly old guy sighs as soon as he appears out of the back of the shop, lowering the spoon he'd brandished like a samurai sword down to his side. "You're gonna give your old man a heart attack."

"Can they wash our dishes?" the girl asks the old man without preamble, pointing at Renge and Naruto. "They wanna do it for seaweed."

"And fishcakes!" Naruto exuberantly adds, jittering in place.

"Or noodles," Renge makes sure to say, holding one of Naruto's shoulders in the hopes he'll stop vibrating like crazy.

"They don't have any money, so they said they'll wash dishes," the girl explains, swinging her hands at her sides like a windmill. "Can they?"

The old man peers at his daughter, then at Renge and Naruto, then smiles so wide his eyes crinkle shut and he looks like one gigantic wrinkle. "How's this sound? For every dish you wash, you'll get one bowl of noodles."

"Really?!" Naruto shrieks. Renge's hand has fallen off of his shoulder in pure shock, and so Naruto is more than willing and able to jump around, hands waving in the air. "Awesome! That sounds awesome, mister! Where's the kitchen?!"

"Can I go to the park, Dad?" the girl asks, a tiny, hopeful smile twisting her lips up.

"Did you finish sweeping behind the bar?" her father asks. She stutters and shifts her weight back and forth before smiling sheepishly. "Do that, then you can go."

"But Dad," she whines. He points behind the bar with that dumb grin still plastered to his face; she sighs and shuffles obligingly away, dragging her feet the whole time. "Why can't they do that?" she mumbles.

"We're not getting a bowl of noodles for every tile we sweep," Renge points out snidely.

"Neither am I!" the older girl screeches, offended. Girls are always offended! It's so stupid. This is so stupid. Renge digs his pinkie into his ear and scowls at her.

"Now, now, kids," the old man coos, "let's not fight over silly things. Everybody get to work! When you're done, Aya-chan, you can go to the park. When you boys are done, I'll whip up some lunch for you." The man's daughter and Renge spend a few more seconds pouting, and Naruto looks anxious to start his half of the dishes. The man claps his hands loudly. "Chop, chop! Get to work!"

Naruto speeds off into the back of the shop while Renge rolls his eyes and follows at a more leisurely pace, making sure to pull his eyelids down and stick his tongue out at the girl before he disappears from her line of sight. Naruto shouts something about being able to finish more dishes than Renge and getting more noodles than him; Renge startles and goes dashing off into the kitchen while the girl fumes in the front of the shop, broom sweeping angrily across the tiles.

"We have to do it half and half!" Renge insists five minutes later, tossing soap suds in Naruto's face and stealing a dish from his side of the sink. "It's not fair if you have more than me. I'm hungry too, y'know!"

"Don't be a sore loser," Naruto teases, bubbles in his mouth. They glisten with rainbows as they float away from his face with each puff of stinky breath he sets loose. "If you wanna be half and half, you gotta be fast, like me!" he brags, tossing another freshly-washed dish into the drying rack.

"You missed a spot 'cuz you go too fast, idiot," Renge says, scrubbing more rapidly at the bowl in his hands before stuffing it in the drying rack on his side of the sink.

Naruto freezes, then picks the plate back up and spins it around in his hands over and over again, looking for marks. There are none. Renge lied. He's able to finish two dishes while Naruto's searching for it, though, and that's what counts. "No I didn't."

"Yeah, you did."

"Nuh-uh!"

"Uh-huh!"

In the end, Naruto still manages to clean three more dishes than Renge. It would've infuriated him more if he hadn't done fifteen himself. Renge can't even finish three bowls of noodles on his own.

Naruto, twelve bowls in, offers to take the twelve and a half bowls Renge doesn't want for himself. It would total his own to thirty and a half bowls of ramen. "No way!" Renge tells him, because thirty and a half bowls of ramen is just excessive and will surely make him sick up all over Renge on the way back to the orphanage, which would make Renge sick up all over Naruto out of spite, and then it'd just be an awful feedback loop of vomiting.

"Eh? Why not?" Naruto asks, a mouthful of noodles spilling onto the countertop with a wet _plop!_ Renge sneers in disgust. Naruto wipes his fist across his mouth and swallows his next bite before adding, "You said you can't finish it, y'know."

"Yeah, I know," Renge groans. "But maybe…" He peeks over the bar at the wrinkly old man, serving his paying customers with that dumb crinkly-eyed grin. He jerks his gaze away when the old man looks back at him, flushing with the shame of being caught staring like a… like a… like a puppy, or like Naruto does when he's all sad and hopeful and uglier than usual.

"Maybe what?" Naruto asks.

Renge shrugs a shoulder and stares at his hands, curled into fists in his lap.

"Full?" the man asks him suddenly. Renge jumps and looks up at him, pink-cheeked and nervous, before nodding sheepishly. The man smiles, soft and small like his daughter's had been an hour ago when she asked to go to the park. "I'll hold your next twelve bowls for whenever you want to stop by next. And if you boys ever want to do my dishes again, I'll do the same thing I did today. How's that sound?"

Renge swallows tightly while Naruto whoops and spits broth all over the bartop. "Awesome," the dark haired boy quietly answers. "That sounds awesome, mister."

"Call me Teuchi-san," he commands kindly.

"That sounds awesome, Teuchi-san!" Naruto dutifully repeats.

"Thanks, Teuchi-san," Renge mumbles. Then he hops off his stool and runs out of the shop, Naruto following reluctantly with numerous unnecessary complaints.

"I didn't even get to finish all of my noodles!"

"Finish them next time, dummy."


End file.
